


A Sip of Pennyroyal

by Ovipositivity



Series: Folk [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bondage, Bukkake, Dom/sub, Domestic, F/M, Rope Bondage, Sex Magic, Size Difference, Size Kink, faerie - Freeform, faerie sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23915911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ovipositivity/pseuds/Ovipositivity
Summary: It's hard for a human and a pixie to keep a relationship going... especially when the faerie's a domme and the human loves to be tied up. But some people can make it work.
Series: Folk [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1218198
Kudos: 14





	A Sip of Pennyroyal

Executive Trustee Robert Sandoval’s office was on the eighty-eighth floor of the Chass Building, but to reach it, a visit would first have to pass through a succession of antechambers and outer offices. Here, Sandoval’s hand-picked staff worked tirelessly: monitoring news, directing investments, managing projects, all to ensure that the vast engine of the Chass Foundation Charitable Trust ticked along like well-wound pocketwatch. Mr. Sandoval—to the people in this building, Mr. Director—managed his patron’s sprawling empire with the lightest possible touch, and days would go by without him having to make a personal appearance at all. When he did, like a God descended from Olympus, the breath would catch in every throat. The legion of scribes and clerks would track him desperately through their peripheral vision, unwilling to look up from their desks, praying that the eye of their master might fall somewhere else. Sandoval was not a cruel man, but when he showed up in person, it meant that somebody had Made a Mistake.

The rest of the time, he ensconced himself in his office. He even had a private elevator back there, so his staff was never quite sure if he was in the building or wooing some potential prospect over $200-a-plate steaks. On those occasions that somebody needed his approval, his signature, or just his advice, they would make their way through the antechambers, to the room with the huge mahogany-paneled doors and the woman in the immaculate suit.

They say that behind every man of power and prestige is a great woman.

It’s a hoary old cliché, and in any case, Pennyroyal’s office was _in front_ of Sandoval’s.

Nobody in the office could remember a time before Pennyroyal (always Pennyroyal, all four syllables; stories abounded of luckless employees who had tried to get away with “Penny”). Mr. Director had managed the Chass Trust for more than two decades, and Pennyroyal had been there the entire time: keeping his schedule, taking his calls, and looking archly over her tiny spectacles at whatever luckless clerk had decided to seek Sandoval’s favor. Her golden hair was always drawn back in a tight bun, her navy skirt-suit impeccable, the collar of her white blouse starched to a cutting edge. She kept her wings folded up discreetly, except when Mr. Director walked the floor, at which time she would hover about a foot behind his right shoulder. “How’s my Tuesday, Pennyroyal?” he would ask, without turning his head, and she’d answer without looking at her notebook:

“Free between 11 and 2, sir, and then again after 6:30. Should I pencil in a meeting?”

Her office had a full-sized human desk, but it was just a platform for her own, pixie-scale workstation. She produced all of her work—all of Mr. Director’s work—on a manual typewriter, custom-built for her fingers. She had a direct line to his office, and if she thought a visiting supplicant deserved an audience, she’d pick it up. On such occasions, the audience would always be granted. After all, Pennyroyal wouldn’t have called unless she thought it was important.

It was said around the office (though only in hushed tones, unless the speaker was very stupid or very new) that Pennyroyal ran the Chase Trust, that she made all the decisions, and that Mr. Director was only in charge for the look of the thing. Some human investors wouldn’t deal with a pixie. Mr. Director, the joke went, spent all day playing pool and solitaire in his spacious playroom while Pennyroyal did all the hard work.

Of course, if she _was_ in charge, she did an excellent job hiding it. Pennyroyal was, in many ways, her boss’s opposite. An employee coming to her hat in hand to report some dismal failure or costly mistake would be met with unstinting warmth, comfort, and commiseration. She was unceasingly polite, even when the red-faced directors of other branches of the Trust would show up _demanding_ to speak to Mr. Sandoval _at once_.

“Please have a seat, sir,” she’d say, her tone deferential and even a little apologetic. “I’ll let Mr. Sandoval know you’re here, and that it’s terribly urgent.”

There were other rumors, of course, involving the pair of them. These rumors were of the sort that chased any woman who had risen high in the corporate hierarchy, no matter her size. They were inchoate, the sort of innuendo that nobody dared put words around. The last one who tried had been a new day trader, Brad something, transferred in from the main Chass Foundation building downtown. Over coffee at lunch, he’d looked from one coworker to another with a conspiratorial grin.

“So, level with me, guys,” he’d said, either ignoring or not noticing the way the others avoided his gaze. “He’s fucking the tink, right?” He took a big bite of his sandwich and chewed happily, spraying crumbs across the tabletop. “The bossman, I mean. Really, though, can you blame him?”

The others present mumbled noncommittally. After lunch, they’d all gone back to their desks. And while none of them were seen visiting Pennyroyal’s desk or placing any discreet phone calls, the next day, Brad Whoever’s desk was empty. Shortly thereafter a new day trader transferred in, and no new thought was given to the idea of a romantic connection between Mr. Director and his ever-loyal assistant.

Pennyroyal kept a routine. It was a comfortable routine, the kind of groove dug out one day at a time. She arrived every morning at 6 a.m. She could have taken the elevator—they had installed a compartment for pixiefolk, to prevent the kind of mischief a tightly packed elevator could wreak on a six-inch-tall passenger—but she preferred to fly up the mail shaft. It hadn’t been used for its primary purpose since e-mail was invented, it gave her wings a workout, and she liked the air of mystique it gave her. Nobody ever saw Pennyroyal arrive! She just turned up! Once arrived, she’d settle in, check her emails from the night before, and arrange Mr. Sandoval’s schedule for the day. His first appointment was usually at 6:30, and she’d be sure to have a dossier on his desk when he arrived at 6:15. After that, she’d circulate around the office, making sure that no fresh crises had hit the night before. She didn’t have to ask—she was so attuned to the ebb and flow of conversation among her staff, she could detect unexpected eddies by ear alone.

Most of her day was spent answering correspondence. Mr. Sandoval received hundreds of messages a day: invitations, proposals, followups, and desperate pleas. She would sort through the chaff and find the important things, the things worth spending his time on. He knew better by now than to second guess her choices. If Pennyroyal picked something for him to see, he knew it was important enough to warrant his attention. If she handled it herself, then he relaxed, secure in the knowledge that she had taken care of the matter.

Between the two of them, they’d pushed the Chass Trust to new heights of prestige and community engagement. They’d turned what could have been yet another billionaire’s vanity project into a real force for good in the city. Over the past two decades, they’d funded two hundred major art exhibitions, seventy concerts, and one annual community festival (Clanmoot on the Green, now entering its fifth year). They’d opened two charity hospitals, three rec centers in low-income neighborhoods, and a line of credit unions serving underbanked Folk populations. And they’d dealt with two near-bankruptcies, three accounting scandals, a major fire, and a diplomatic fracas involving a reception held for the Irish ambassador.

And now, a murder.

Pennyroyal knew that, technically, she should be the one to handle inquiries about the ongoing Sophitia Chass case. It was _important_ , yes, but it wasn’t important-important, the kind of thing that Mr. Sandoval needed to deal with himself. Most of the inquiries were reporters, trying to get a quote from someone in the sprawling Chass empire now that the family had clammed up. Pennyroyal was just as capable as Mr. Sandoval would have been at saying “no comment.” But this was different. Sandoval had been at Sophitia Chass’s christening. He’d sent her a present every birthday since she was born (usually something tasteful picked out by his assistant, but he reviewed her choices first). And now he paced a furrow in the thick carpet of his office and asked for Pennyroyal to get him police reports and crime scene photos. In truth, the pixie was worried. She’d never see her boss like this.

Tonight, Friday evening, his last appointment had finished at 5:30. Afterwards, he’d gone to his office without a word. Pennyroyal could feel the thunder rumbling out from behind those mahogany doors, and busied herself on work that she knew could wait. One by one, the office staff left for the weekend, chatting in pairs about their weekend plans or the latest news of the Chass case. The news was on everyone’s lips, and for good reason: Sophitia hadn’t just been Mr. Chass’s favorite daughter: she’d been the face of the Chass Foundation and its most active sponsor.

Pennyroyal waited until the last of them were gone, then arose from her desk. She flitted across the floor to the big mahogany double doors, and past them, to the little wooden shelf jutting from the wall beside the doorframe. There was a second door here, a door that would not look out of place in a dollhouse. Some pixies hated that type of thing. They found it twee. But Pennyroyal was a pragmatist, and having direct access to Mr. Sandoval’s office outweighed any hit to her dignity from using an Alice door.

She found the boss where she’d known she would: sitting at his computer, furiously refreshing his email. He looked up at the buzz of her wings. “Ah, Penny,” he said, but without any jollity. “Have you heard anything?”

By now, she knew what that question meant. “No, sir. No breaks in the case in the past half hour.”

Sandoval reared back from his desk and pounded a fist angrily on the hardwood. “I know that, damn it! I just—” he caught himself and sighed. The exhalation seemed to deflate him. When he spoke again, it was in a low deadpan, so unlike his normal voice that it sent a chill up Pennyroyal’s spine.

“I just feel useless, Penny,” he said. “Nothing I can do to help. No buttons to push on this one. Sophie’s dead, and that’s it. Even if we find out who did it, that won’t bring her back.”

“The police will find out who did it,” Pennyroyal offered. She alighted on his desk and walked towards him until she was standing between him and the screen. To her complete lack of surprise, she saw he had been reviewing the police report again. “They’re taking this very seriously. That’s not just press-release-speak, either. Chief Kaegen assures me that they’re putting extra resources on this case.” _Resources they’re pulling from crime against Folk, no doubt_ , she thought but did not say. There were things Pennyroyal did not say to her boss, and in any case, he already knew this one.

“Really? This is their best?” Sandoval waved a hand and scoffed. “I read the lead detective’s file. She’s… fine. Competent. But she hasn’t gotten anywhere yet. What about our tipline? What are we doing, Penny?”

“Our jobs, sir.” Pennyroyal crossed her arms and looked up at him. “I’m sorry, sir. I miss Ms. Chass as well. Her loss is a tragedy. But what’s important right now, what she would want, is that the Chass Foundation carries on her work. It’s what she cared about. It is _all_ she cared about.”

“That’s true enough,” Sandoval groused. He ran one hand through his hair—still thick on top, despite his looming 50s—and stood. “Come on, Penny,” he growled. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Let’s go home.”

His private elevator arrived with a _ding_ , and Pennyroyal followed him inside. There was no pixiefolk compartment on this one, but none was necessary; she perched on his shoulder and hung on to his lapel as they started to descend. It wasn’t the most dignified position, but nobody could see them. That was, in fact, the point. One additional bonus to Pennyroyal’s mail-tube flights each morning was that it prevented her employees from noticing one simple, obvious fact: both Mr. Director and his secretary arrived in the same car every morning.

Originally, they’d kept their arrangement clandestine for professional purposes. Before Mr. Sandoval was established at the head of the Trust, his rivals might have used an illicit workplace dalliance as a weapon against him. Now, of course, there was no danger of that. Half of the executives in this town seemed to be sleeping with their secretaries, anyways. But the secrecy persisted. Pennyroyal didn’t want to deal with accusations that she had slept her way to the top, and Sandoval didn’t want to answer questions about improper fraternization with an employee. Nor was marriage a prospect; making their relationship public, even if it was all above board, would fundamentally change the office dynamic in a way that couldn’t be changed back.

Over and above all that, though, there was one simple reason to keep the true nature of their relationship a secret: it was fun. There was a thrill to it, to passing messages in code, to stealing moments in Sandoval’s office between meetings. To keeping a secret, nestling it against your heart, and going about your day as though everything was normal. As though your heart didn’t race every time you made eye contact with your co-conspirator.

Sandoval always parked in a private annex to the main employee garage, but Pennyroyal kept her head on a swivel all the same, ready to leap up from his shoulder if it looked like someone might spot her lounging. She’d kicked off her heels and dangled her stockinged feet over the edge of his shoulder like a swimmer on the edge of a pool. Sandoval unlocked his car and swung his body into the driver’s seat. Pennyroyal had her own seat, custom-made, set just behind the stickshift. Human-sized airbags could easily kill a faerie, but she wasn’t about to sit in the backseat like a child.

Pennyroyal still kept an apartment in the Fishmarket District, but she only slept there a couple of nights a week. Sandoval had a penthouse in one of the Chass Foundation’s luxury highrises downtown. He kept clothes and a toothbrush there, but it wasn’t really _home_. Home, for both of them, was an anonymous brownstone in the Old City, its façade artfully draped in ivy and wisteria blossoms. Sandoval pulled into the underground garage and waited patiently for the door to descend before he unlocked the car. Discretion had gone from a tool to a way of life.

Only when they were upstairs did they finally relax. The brownstone’s kitchen was finished in a rustic style, with exposed brick walls and reclaimed wood furniture. Cast-iron cookware hung from a ring of hooks above the center console. Pennyroyal had grown up in the country and found the rural affectation a little tiresome, but she wasn’t about the complain when Sandoval did all the cooking. He could have afforded a cook (and a driver, if it came to that), but he preferred to do the work himself.

He had stripped off his work shirt on the way in from the garage and tossed it in the laundry hamper. Underneath, he wore a plain white t-shirt, discolored by a day’s worth of sweat. Pennyroyal didn’t mind. She sat on the counter and watched him chop vegetables with a faint smile on her face. Neither of them was as young as they used to be, and while faeries looked pretty much the same until the day they dropped dead, she could count the crow’s feet lining her beloved’s face. It wasn’t just Chass. This job was wearing on him. He carried the weight of the Chass Trust on his shoulders, and over the years, that weight was starting to bear down on him. There was a Board, sure, and an army of accountants and investment advisors and project managers, but at the end of the day it was Robert Sandoval’s job to make sure that the world spun gently along its axis and the sun rose in the morning.

And Pennyroyal’s job? To support him, she supposed. To refine him. To ensure that he was prepared, empowered, and fit for purpose. To polish his every facet until he shone like a diamond. To love him? Maybe, but sometimes she felt that her love was that of an artist for her greatest masterwork. She had made Robert Sandoval what he was today, and perhaps she had taken on that project out of girlish infatuation, but she persisted out of professional pride and genuine admiration.

Well, who wouldn’t have been infatuated? When they’d met, Robert had turned heads wherever he went. A tall man, broad-shouldered, with wavy black hair as thick and dark as oil. His olive skin hinted at a background somewhere in the Mediterranean, as did his barely-there accent. She’d learned over the years that he could modulate that accent, to seem just a little bit foreign or as homegrown as apple pie. He seemed to have an unfailing instinct for which Robert his audience would prefer. Either way, his voice was calm and steady, a rich tenor that put people in mind of an opera singer pausing between arias. He wore suits as though he’d been born in one, and his beautifully manicured hands punctuated his speech as though they had lives of their own.

Everything he did was graceful, with an economy of movement Pennyroyal associated much more with her own species than his. Right now, he was mincing garlic with precise, economical movements of his wrist. From the elbow up, his arm seemed to be locked in place. Penny could see the muscles flexing below the skin, the dark hair that covered his arm from wrist to bicep moving almost imperceptibly. She sighed and cupped her chin in one hand. Watching Robert cook was a delight. Time had stooped his shoulders a little, taken some of the tightness out of his flesh, but it had also peppered some dignified grey into his hair and put a gentle burr in his voice.

“What’s for dinner, my love?” she asked. Her hair was still packed into its tight bun, but she started pulling the pins out. He answered without turning.

“Ratatouille, over quinoa, with a ’98 Shiraz.” He looked at her with a hint of expectation on his face. “What do you think?”

Pennyroyal hesitated for a second, then smiled and nodded. “Delicious. You know, we could just order a pizza sometime.”

Robert made a face, but quickly caught himself and gave her a curt nod. “If you wish. Where would you prefer?”

She laughed. “Not tonight, you silly man. You’ve already started chopping.” She lowered her head and smirked. “Besides, if we ordered a pizza, I wouldn’t get to watch you work. Who told you to stop chopping?”

Robert smiled and gave her a salute, then bent to his task. Pennyroyal, meanwhile, headed upstairs. Her work blouse was terribly itchy. She flew into her closet—a mere subdivision of Robert’s much more expansive wardrobe, but with many times more clothes than he had. Every year, her mother sent her a hand-sewn tunic from home in the old style. Pennyroyal had a lot to say about those tunics: they conformed to harmful stereotypes, they made her look like a country bumpkin, they were far too scanty for a working woman to wear in the big city. But, though she hated to admit it even to herself, they were far more comfortable than the suits that she spent the rest of her life in.

By the time she returned downstairs, Robert was wearing his apron and stirring something on the stovetop. The smell of fresh-picked tomatoes filled the air. Pennyroyal sat on the table with a newspaper open across her knees. She was always faintly amused by what the pixie papers chose to cover; they seemed blissfully unconcerned with what her family always called BPP, or Big People Problems. She had just finished reading a story about the struggled to enact pixie-only hours at a local pool when the oven timer chimed.

“Ready!” Robert declared. “Give me a minute… there!” He walked over to the table with a tray in both arms. He’d laid out the ratatouille beautifully in the baking dish, a rainbow of cut vegetables that filled the air with a savory smell. He’d gotten very good at plating for her, too—a few artfully sliced pieces, arranged on a plate the size of a half-dollar. He set out the promised shiraz on the table. This was one of the innovations he’d been proudest of: a dual-species bottle. Corked on top, it had a tiny tap set in the base, like a maple-sap spigot. Pennyroyal filled her glass, a delicate balloon goblet that would not have been out of place in a doll’s tea set. In truth, she wouldn’t have minded sipping out of the corner of Robert’s glass, but she appreciated the effort to spare her dignity.

They ate in companionable silence. Most of the words they would have exchanged had been said years ago, a thousand times each. Their company was enough. Only when most of the food was gone and they were both hard at work on their third glasses of wine did Pennyroyal speak.

“You know, you don’t have to banish meat from your kitchen on my account,” she said. Robert looked down at her quizzically.

“I thought you didn’t eat meat?”

“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to. You could cook something for yourself with meat in it.”

He still looked confused. “But I cook for you. What would you eat?”

“You could make a vegetarian version? Or I could make something. Or order out.”

Robert shook his head. “That sounds complicated. I don’t mind cooking vegetarian, I really don’t.” He laughed. “Plus, basically every business lunch I have during the week is steak. It’s nice to get a break.”

“You do need a break,” Pennyroyal replied. She set down her glass and took off, her wings buzzing a little erratically. She made her way up to his shoulder and landed there. Reaching up, she caressed his cheek with one hand. “You need to relax.”

Robert sighed. “You keep saying that, Penny, but I can’t relax. It’s this thing with Sophie, it’s—”

“No, Robert,” she said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. He shut up at once. “You need to _relax_.” She rubbed her palm across his jawline and planted a kiss on his earlobe.

“Yes, dear,” he said, and the ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “After I do the dishes.”

She waited for him upstairs. She’d changed again. Now, she wore a peignoir, black satin edged with lace so fine that to human eyes it was practically invisible. She’d put her hair back up in a long, flowing ponytail that nearly reached the small of her back. She dimmed the lights in the bedroom and stripped the bed, so that only a fitted sheet and a single pillow remained. In contrast to the luxury present elsewhere, the bed was almost Spartan: a king-size mattress, the headboard and footboard both steel fences. There was a box under that bed, a box that remained locked throughout the week so no nosy maid could poke her nose where it didn’t belong. Pennyroyal had tugged it out and opened it with the key she kept in her wardrobe, and she was busy retrieving her tools when Robert arrived.

He waited for her at the door. He knew to do that by now. He’d removed his pants, shoes and shirt and stood in the doorway in his socks and boxer shorts. When he saw Pennyroyal looking at him, he drew in a breath and straightened up, puffing his chest out ever so slightly and sucking in his stomach. She smiled. He didn’t have much to correct for in either area—regular trips to the gym had left him nearly as toned now as he’d been in his thirties. Pennyroyal let him sit and stew for a moment, watched him shift nervously from foot to foot, then beckoned him inside.

Something changed in Robert as he walked over the threshold to the bedroom. It was a subtle shift, the kind of thing that only a person who’d been with him every day for the past two decades might notice. Tension ran out of him, like a release of breath. He walked a little straighter, held his arms a little looser. “What should I do tonight?” he asked. Pennyroyal smiled. Even after all this time, after knowing better, he couldn’t resist.

“You should not speak until I tell you to, to start with,” she said. Her face set in a stern expression. “Sit down on the bed.”

Robert looked like he wanted to say something—to apologize, maybe, for his presumption—but he didn’t. Instead, he sat down on the side of the bed, his legs over the edge. His fingers tapped nervously at the bedframe. She noticed that at once: not all of the tension had gone, it seemed. Very well. She had her work cut out for her.

“Lie back. Arms above your head.” Robert was familiar enough with this command: he laid down with his arms outstretched, palms outwards, wrists touching. Pennyroyal flew up to where his hands rested, inches from the headboard. She trailed a length of cord behind her. This stuff, custom-made to order, was no thicker than her wrist, but the drider that had sold it to them had assured them that it was as strong as steel. Pennyroyal carried a three-foot length of it, long enough to wrap Robert’s wrists in Prusik cuffs and secure them to the bedframe via a tight hitch. Her small hands worked quickly, with dexterity born out of repetition.

Once he was tied, she hopped down off his wrist and strutted across the sheets. Robert tugged at his hands a little, for the look for the thing, but they both knew that he was securely bound. Pennyroyal flitted over to the side table and pushed open the top drawer with both hands. She jumped down, retrieved a strip of black leather, and flew up to Robert’s head. Hovering next to it, she smiled down at him.

“Ready, pumpkin?”

“Ready.” He flashed her a megawatt grin.

She laid the strip across his eyes and he lifted his head to let her tie it in the back. She cinched it tight, then flew back up top to adjust the leather and make sure he was truly blind. Once she was satisfied that he was, she hopped down onto his chest.

This was familiar ground. His pectorals were nearly as flat as they’d been when they first got together. Those had been heady days; they’d spent so many evenings drunk on wine and each other, experimenting to see what they could get away with. Pennyroyal’s magic had been stronger in those days, and she’d needed it more than once, when she misjudged her own limits or Robert’s.

 _Mama warned me not to get involved with anyone taller than a tree stump_ , she reflected. _Good thing I never listened._

She let her bare toes curl through Robert’s chest hair and closed her eyes. Inhaling deeply, she filled her nostrils with the scent of him. She could smell the traces of dinner on him still: cooking oil, roasted vegetables, spice. And the slightly soapy smell of the dishes. Beneath that, she could faintly taste sweat, the leathery smell of his office chair, and just a tiny hint of his cologne. His hair felt wiry beneath her toes, not at all like grass, though she’d made the comparison a few times to tease him. It reminded her of the outdoors all the same. She told herself she didn’t miss it, didn’t miss living in the hollow of a tree with forty brothers and sisters and cousins, didn’t miss the frenetic, randy melee that was life in the enclave. But it relaxed her all the same to stretch out her toes on her lover’s chest, close her eyes, and fill the sky in her imagination with stars.

She skipped down the curve of his belly, laughing to herself. Robert laughed, too, as her tiny feet tickled his skin. She paused just below his navel and threw herself into a handspring. Her wings buzzed behind her. His boxers loomed ahead, and she seized his waistband with both hands. A couple more steps and she was taking flight, tugging the fabric behind her. Robert arched his back and lifted his hips to help her. His boxers slid down his thighs, revealing his tight obliques and the V-shaped ridge of his Apollo’s belt. Pennyroyal loved that V, and she made sure to get an eyeful as she pulled his underwear down his legs. A light dusting of hair thatched the ridge of his lower abs, darkening as it met the coarse thicket of his pubic hair. His half-hard penis lay gently against his thigh, but as if stirred to wakefulness by the sudden light, it rose to attention. Even semi-erect it was nearly as long as Penny was tall. She blew it a kiss and flew away down Robert’s leg, trailing his boxers behind her like a flag, then pulled them around his ankle and tossed them over the edge of the bed. His socks, he could keep.

She made a wing-assisted jump up onto his knee and began to walk up his thigh. Every step was deliberate. She ground her heels into him, knowing that he would experience her steps as a gentle massage. With each step, his penis loomed in her vision like a great monolith or statute carved from teak. She made herself walk towards it, not run. Running was undignified. It was about as tall as she was now, an iron-hard length of muscle and pumping blood. She could count every vein in his shaft, every minor detail and imperfection. They were all old friends to her by now.

Pennyroyal circled her lover’s cock slowly, like a lion stalking around fallen prey. She stepped from his thigh to his pubic mound to his other thigh to his testicles. They lay there, pillowed against his body, two fleshy orbs larger than her head. She reached down to knead one with her fingers. It was warm, soft, and pliable beneath her hands. Robert let out a stifled groan, and she took flight at once. Her wings buzzed angrily like a swarm of bees. She hovered in front of his face and leveled an accusing finger at him. “Did I tell you to speak?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” Robert replied. He sounded chastened.

“What made you think you could speak?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

She buzzed a little closer.

“That’s not good enough, pet. If you want release, you have to follow the rules. Alright?”

Robert nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Pennyroyal fluttered backwards a few inches. “Good,” she said. “But we’re going to play some games first.”

She flew down to her box and pulled out a few things. Just scraps, really, bits of cloth and fabric that she’d saved from his suits over the years. She’d cut them into strips a few inches long and about an inch thick. She flew back to his thigh, her cloth strips fluttering behind her, and laid them out side by side against his thigh. Selecting one, she strutted back to where his cock pointed towards the ceiling.

She held one end of the strip in each hand and let the center billow outward. It was about five inches long and hung between her fingers. She jumped up, hovered there for a moment, and tossed out the loop so it encircled Robert’s manhood. When she landed on his thigh again, she pulled the loop tight and wrapped it around his penis. Like a bather toweling herself off, she began to rub back and forth.

This was one of Pennyroyal’s favorite games, and like all good games, there was an art to it. Too soft, and she’d barely get Robert’s attention. Too hard, and she’d give him friction burns. She wasn’t against a little roughness when necessary, but that would ruin the game.

His cock twitched beneath her arms, and she could see him shifting, though to his credit he remained silent. She gave it another five seconds and stopped. She laid the cloth scrap down next to its fellows and rose up into the air.

“What was it?” she asked. Robert lifted his head.

“Linen?”

To herself, Pennyroyal smiled. She was proud of Robert, of the way he’d thrown himself into her silly little games. It showed that he cared. That was why she was still with him after all these years, why she’d ignored her mother’s entreaties to find a nice man or two and pump out as many kids as possible. Robert tried his best, always, at everything he did.

Out loud, she said: “Very well. Next sample.” The next strip she selected was darker, thicker. She looped it around Robert’s shaft and began to rub back and forth. She danced around his cock, polishing it from all angles, now lifting the fabric high above her head and now lowering it to the base. Only when he began to squirm did she stop, and she called out to him again: “What was it?”

His answer came quickly. “Wool.”

Pennyroyal threw the scrap of wool away and danced a happy little jig on Robert’s thigh. “Well done, pet!” she cried, and flung herself at his cock. She wrapped her arms around it in a bear hug and planted a large, wet kiss against his bulbous head. The salty tang of precum landed on her tongue, and she smacked her lips like a gourmand. “One more, I think,” she said. She took her time picking out the last strip and tossed it around the bobbing, twitching shaft.

This time, she went slow, pulling the cloth all the way to the left before pausing and going all the way to the right. She circle his cock like a maypole, but slowly, dragging her scrap of cloth with her. At times, she pulled it as tight as fist, then loosened her grip until it was barely grazing him. When she set it down, she could see sweat beading on Robert’s forehead.

“Well, love?” she asked, tapping her foot impatiently. Robert hemmed and hawed for a moment.

“Er… satin?”

“Wrong!” she announced, malicious glee dripping off every syllable. She grabbed the little piece of silk and rolled it up like a towel. With a flick of her wrist, she snapped it at Robert’s balls. Her aim was perfect—the tip of the cloth whip-cracked against his sack. Robert jolted in his restraints and let out a whine between his teeth. “I’m afraid you have to take your medicine!” She snap-cracked it again, this time aiming for the base of his shaft. This time, Robert’s sudden jolt shifted his thigh, and she had to scramble to keep her footing. “Be more careful!” she chided, and snapped her makeshift whip one more time, this time aiming at the head of his penis.

“Ah!” Robert cried out a little, and Pennyroyal let the scrap drop. “There, there,” she cooed, fluttering in to his abused manhood. “It’s ok, my pet. It’s all ok. Let Pennyroyal kiss it better.” She knelt down and leaned her head in to kiss his balls. His sack was slightly reddish where she’d stung it, but she could tell there was no real damage. Her mouth, hot and hungry, sucked in a fold his skin, and she played with it with pursed lips. She stood up and kissed his shaft, then extended her tongue and licked it from the base to the tip, leaving a glistening trail behind. Last of all, she cupped the head of his cock in both hands and kissed it like a lover, deeply and passionately, her tongue flicking at the inside of his slit.

When she’d finished, she could see Robert was breathing hard. She leapt into the air and buzzed over towards his head. “Now, now, my love,” she chided. “You know the rules. No release until I grant it.”

He nodded. “May I…?” he began, but Pennyroyal cut him off. “You may not. What you may do is extend your tongue. And leave it extended.”

Robert did so, and Pennyroyal shrugged off her peignoir, letting it fall onto the bedside table. Naked, she extended her arms and legs, reveling in the feeling of air against her bare skin. A part of her—a tiny part, but one she could not entirely suppress, no matter how long she worked in the city—told her that _this_ was right, that _this_ was the only way to fly, that clothes to a pixie were like the proverbial icthys’s bicycle. She fluttered around, sprang a cartwheel in midair, and slowly let herself settle onto Robert’s face.

His tongue jutted up between his lips like a fleshy pink stump. She knelt with her knees on either side of it and lowered herself until she felt its tip barely touching her pussy. Her lips parted ever-so-slightly, letting just the very tip of his tongue lap at her pink inner folds. She sighed and closed her eyes. Slowly, with great care and delicacy, she began to roll her hips forward and back, forward and back. Robert’s tongue remained still, and she pressed herself against it. It was the most marvelous organ: soft and wet, yet firm; tremendously muscular, yet pliable and moldable. It shaped itself to her crevices, to the warp and weft of her body. She slowly increased her tempo until she was humping with gusto. Robert’s nostrils flared, but he remained otherwise still. Pennyroyal planted one hand one each of his lips and thrust with her hips, forward and down, as if daring his tongue to probe deeper inside her. Her eyes were closed, her nipples standing out like little diamonds on her chest. Gooseprickles raced up her back. _Yes, this is where you belong Robert, yes, be with me, my love, be with me_.

His nostrils flared and she felt his hot breath against her wings. Never was she more aware of the size difference between them. Inches beneath her were his teeth and the steely trapdoor of his jaw. If he wanted to, he could open that trap in an instant. He could crack her bones, crumple her delicate wings, swallow her whole and screaming. He wouldn’t, of course. Robert was the most gentle man she’d ever known. But the fact that he _could_ was never higher in her mind then in these moments. And did it thrill her? Was a part of her—a tiny part, perhaps, locked away in some dank oubliette in her mind—hoping that today was the day? No, of course not, no more than a woman standing on the edge of a subway platform secretly wants to jump. But that knowledge that she _could_ … the French called it _l’appel du vide_ , the call of the void.

Perhaps that was why it thrilled Pennyroyal so to exert her mastery over her lover. Robert was nine times her height and more than fifty times her weight. He submitted to her not because he had to, but because he _didn’t_ have to. Because, with the layers of job and species stripped away, when they were just two souls bared to each other, submission was the most natural fit for him. She wondered, not for the first time, what life would be like if _she_ were human and he were a pixie. Would they have found each other? Would their strange relationship still work?

She shuddered. While she had been lost in thought, Robert had begun to vibrate his tongue. He was terribly good at this, a school honed by years of practice. Just the tip, at first, buzzing like an angry beetle, but soon the entire pink length was quivering against Pennyroyal’s skin. The tip of his tongue, just the tiniest portion of the tip, slipped inside her, parted her folds and stole inside to sip at her nectar. She gasped and clutched at her breasts, her fingers finding her nipples and rolling them back and forth. She knew she should tell him to stop, should punish him. He’d moved without permission. But the pleasure seizing her now was building steam, rolling like a gathering wave and pushing her climax before it. The wave crashed over her and she threw her head back. Her wings buzzed frantically, counterpointing her high-pitched cries of pleasure. “OH!” she screamed. In the moment, her composure was forgotten. “OH, Robert, ROBERT, OH, OHH, OHHHH!”

His quivering slowed and stopped. Pennyroyal sagged against his tongue, panting hard, twitching at the aftershocks that danced across her body.

Robert withdrew his tongue, and she slumped down on his cheek. Her sopping pussy left a trail of his saliva and her own juices. She grabbed his nose for support and propped herself upright.

“Naughty boy…” she managed. “I didn’t tell you to do that. And I didn’t tell you to put your tongue away, either.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Robert said. He sounded abashed, and he stuck his tongue back out. Pennyroyal waved him off.

“No, put that away. I have to discipline you now, you know.” She took flight—a little unsteadily, as she was still bathing in post-orgasmic haze—and flitted down to where his cock jutted towards the ceiling. As she flew, she raised her arms and concentrated. A faint pink nimbus crackled to life around her hands. Tiny sparks flew off her and disappeared. What looked like a section of cloud, pink and sparkling with internal lights, grew between her hands.

“I’m going to try something new tonight, pet,” she told him. “I read about this online.”

“Uh, I smell magic,” Robert said. He sounded uncertain. “Uh, yellow?”

Pennyroyal sighed and landed on his hip. She let the energy she had been gathering fade. The pink glow around her hands dissipated.

“Yes, dear?” she said. Gone was the seductive purr in her voice. Now she sounded like Pennyroyal the Secretary again.”

“I thought we agreed no more magic in the bedroom?” Robert asked. “After last time.”

Pennyroyal sighed. “I’m sorry, love. Yes, we did. But that was a while ago. I’ve been reading up. And I’m more prepared this time. It’s two days to the full moon, and I haven’t been using any at work.”

“Well… alright,” Robert said. “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself. Or me.”

“I know,” she said, and sighed. “I should have asked first. I apologize. But Robert, I can do this. I _want_ to do this. I promise I’ll stop if I feel myself overdoing it, ok?”

“Ok,” he said. He seemed a _bit_ reassured, at least. “Ok, I trust you, Penny.”

She waited for a moment. “Green, Robert?”

There was a pause, barely perceptible if she hadn’t been waiting for it. “Yes. Green. I love you, Penny.”

“Love you, too.”

She lifted her hands again and closed her eyes. The familiar power ran up her spine and down her arms, where it began to glow. She could feel it flowing down out of the sky and up out of the earth. It was hard, to practice the Art in the city, surrounded by so much steel and concrete and brick. So many _humans_. But it was not impossible, never impossible. Not for the Blessed Folk, as her mother had always called them.

Bands of pink light burst out of her gathered fists, puffing up into the air like smoke rings. One, two, three, they hovered a couple inches over her head, orbiting like miniature planets. She paced across Robert’s belly until she was standing just below his navel, and the rings traveled with her. Maintaining them hardly took any concentration at all. Moving them was a little harder, but not much. She dragged them to her position, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her lips with the effort. Almost… almost…

The first one dropped onto his penis as neatly as a horseshoe around a stake. Pennyroyal let it fall to the bottom of his shaft and rest there. Robert gasped, a short, sharp inhalation of breath. “Does it hurt, dear?” Pennyroyal asked.

“No!” he said. “No, it feels… weird… warm…”

“Good weird?”

“I think so…”

She didn’t wait for further elaboration. The second ring was almost in position. She let this one drop, too, until it was about halfway down his length. The third she maneuvered until it wrapped around the base of his cockhead, nestled in under the bulbous edge of his glans.

With all three rings in position, she adjusted her hands. Slowly, deliberately, she rotated her wrists until her palms were facing each other and extended her fingers to grip an invisible column. Her fingertips interlaced and her thumb tips just barely touched each other. Now it was her turn to gasp: in between her fingers, she _felt him_. Something, anyways: something warm and fleshy, something that throbbed with its own heartbeat. “Oh!” she called out in surprise. “Oh, I think it’s working!”

She began to pump her hands up and down. The rings stayed put, but something shimmered between them, some kind of wave or pulse. Robert’s whole body jolted, and Pennyroyal had to shift fast to keep her balance. “It’s working!” he said. It sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth. “Oh, it’s working!”

Pennyroyal grinned. The power was flowing through her now, comfortable and familiar. Her hair whipped in a phantom breeze. Particles shedded off her wings—the so-called “faerie dust.” She knew she might have to molt them in a day or two because of this, but she didn’t care. She hadn’t felt this exhilarated in a long while. Up and down, up and down, she pumped her hands with gusto. The invisible force between them pulsed and throbbed, sending warmth back up her arms. A couple of inches away, Robert’s cock twitched in time. She could see faint indentations moving on his skin. Her fingerprints? Maybe, if she had human-sized hands. A little rivulet of precum trickled down the side of his shaft, and the warm feeling between her hands grew slick and slippery. She sped up the pace. She couldn’t channel like this for long—she could already feel herself fatiguing—but while it lasted, the high was flooding her with energy. The years melted away. For a moment, they were young again, bold again, and the world was heady with endless possibilities. For a moment, they were the same size.

Robert’s breathing grew rapid and shallow, and Pennyroyal knew what that meant. She pumped faster. The power would dissipate soon, but she would finish him off first. She could do that much. He drew in one final sharp breath and Pennyroyal _pulled_ , leaning her hands back as though yanking on a lever. Robert’s cock angled upwards all on its own, bent towards her as though by gravity. Penny squeezed her hands together one more time and closed her eyes.

The first spurt hit her full in the face. Pennyroyal laughed at the feeling, the warmth of it splashing across her nose and mouth. Sometimes during Tiny Girls’ Brunch, her pixie friends would wonder openly about those few of their cohorts who were openly dating humans. “What do they get out of it?” they’d ask, shaking their heads. “If you can’t get laid, what’s the point?” Pennyroyal would nod, knowing she could never explain this to them, not in a million years. She wasn’t sure what it was about Robert’s cum that affected her so. It was something primal, almost barbaric. She felt like Cleopatra, bathing in asses’ milk.

She opened her mouth, so much of the second shot landed right on her tongue. It was sticky and slightly salty. She savored it, rolling it from cheek to cheek before swallowing a fat wad. She luxuriated at the feeling of it slipping down and plunking into her stomach. Of course, while she was enjoying her meal, another volley had basted her tits and shoulders, and another had landed in her hair. Thick rivulets of it ran down her back and sides. One particularly saucy droplet ran into her navel.

With her mouth cleared, she opened wide again, in time for another juicy wad to splatter across her face. Ah, who could she ever tell about this? She felt rejuvenated. She’d need a shower, of course, but she swore this was a better skin treatment than half of the expensive products human girls bought. _Protein-rich, too_ , she thought, and giggled to herself. She relaxed the grip she’d been maintaining and the pink bands disappeared. Robert’s manhood sprang back upright in time for one final eruption, which flew almost straight up into the air. Pennyroyal took flight to intercept it, tiny droplets raining off her, and managed to catch it on her back. She rubbed her hands up and down her sides, squishing the dripping cum between her fingers, massaging it into her skin. She even grabbed a particularly squishy handful and reached between her thighs to rub it into the folds of her quim. Sadly, humans and pixiefolk were utterly incompatible breeding-wise, but at least that meant she didn’t have to worry about unplanned pregnancy. She landed again on the little pool of cum that had formed at the base of Robert’s belly and rolled back and forth it like a kid making a snow angel.

Robert waited patiently through all this. He was used to it, after all. When Pennyroyal finally had enough, her giddy grin fading from her face, she walked up the length of his chest. She knew she was leaving a dripping trail behind her and didn’t care. Robert could shower too.

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, my love,” she said, and hopped down to untie his blindfold.

“I wish you’d clean up before you do that,” Robert said. “I have to wash the sheets every time.”

“Then wash the sheets,” she said, and stuck her tongue out at him. “You’re welcome, by the way.” She started working on the knot that bound his wrists.

“Thank you, love,” he said, and smiled at her. “I’m sorry I doubted you. That was wonderful.”

“You were wonderful!” she said. “We’ve still got it, haven’t we?”

“We sure do.” Robert sat up and massaged some feeling back into his wrists. “Makes me want to skip work Monday and sleep in.”

“Why don’t we?” Pennyroyal offered. “The company won’t burn down without you, Robert.”

“I can’t, Penny, you know that,” he said, and just like that, his face was set in the familiar firm lines. “This thing with Sophie, it’s…”

“Shhh, Robert,” she said, flitting up to sit on his bare shoulder. She rested one hand against his cheek. “I know I can’t pry you away from work during the week. But let the weekend just be time for us, ok? Just some time for us.”

He hesitated, but the smile that filled his face was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

“Alright, dear,” he said. “For us.”

And so it was.


End file.
